| 29 MAR 2011 at 9:37am |
TravellerGuild Master
Posts : 4040
Joined: 3 JUL 2010
Location: US
Status : Offline | Originally Posted By TechnoSpike (28 MAR 2011 11:20pm)
As for the stereotypes, I guess there's still a lot of that going on. I recently saw a thread on a forum I sometimes lurk that made me go [smiley=shocked.gif]... It was titled "Anyone else have a gamer girlfriend?" and the majority of the posts seemed to perpetuate the idea that girls don't play games and if the do, they don't play "real" games, they play Sims, farmville or whatever...
Go figure! :
The biggest irony of what you posted there, Techno, is that the man in my life is not a gamer, and hates my gaming! [smiley=cry.gif] Life would be heaven on earth for me if I was with a guy who also enjoys gaming, -any kind of gaming, even if he didn't enjoy my type of gaming, (which is mostly RPG, RTS , TBS and adventure games. )
He prefers spending his free time going out with his buddies to watch sport, and I hate it when he comes home without me noticing, and there I am bashing away in combat and I look around and see him staring at my screen and shaking his head with contempt and a horrible look in his eyes... :'(
* * * Just call me Trav. * * *
“Despite my ghoulish reputation, I really have the heart of a small boy. I keep it in a jar on my desk.” - Robert Bloch
"They are not reciprocally sublated--the one does not sublate the other externally--but each sublates itself in itself and is in its own self the opposite of itself" (Hegel, from The Doctrine of Being)..."
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| 30 MAR 2011 at 5:18pm |
| Deleted User | In DA2 I'm working on The Long Road, a personal quest for Aveline to hook up with with Donnic. (something I believe would be frowned upon in modern society ) There's no doubt in my mind that this quest was included with the sole purpose to appeal to certain feministic qualities of the female gender. There's no way I can picture a male Hawke running all those errands and sitting with Donnic at the bar waiting...waiting...waiting...
[img]http://justadventure.com/yabb/Smilies/eww.gif[/img]
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| 1 APR 2011 at 7:27am |
antlerIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 51
Joined: 28 NOV 2007
Status : Online | Throwing my two cents in I like story centered games, mostly third person. I am guessing third person because they tend to be more storied centered than first person games which tend to be more puzzle centered. I know that is not an absolute. I began with Kings Quest then Gabriel Knight and one of my favorites Lost in Time. First person story centered game with female lead. That in itself was unusual for the mid 1990's.
So call me a wuss but I hate combat, blood, guts violence and gore. Not crazy about Nancy Drew either. The reason is those dreaded mini games. I don't know how many times half way through a Nancy Drew I had to remind myself what the mystery I was trying to solve was. Yes I liked Culpa Innata, great story but too much talk about sex. Was that to titillate the guys? Then again the ability to change clothes was a good one. I mean come on how grungy does our character get wearing the same outfit through the whole story?
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| 12 APR 2011 at 7:47pm |
Simo Sakari AaltonenSpace Cadet
Posts : 130
Joined: 23 APR 2004
Status : Offline | Traveller, I feel so bad for you! >
You deserve someone who accepts all of you. At least in games no one is actually getting hurt, unlike in many sports. (Violent idiots in hockey, football hooligans in Britain, boxing...)
[url=http://www.telltalegames.com/forums/album.php?u=57439][i]King's Quest[/i] & [i]Space Quest[/i] galleries (Telltale Forums)[/url]&&&&[url=http://www.adventurecompanion.com]The Adventure Companion[/url]
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| 31 AUG 2011 at 1:36pm |
Child Of DunwichPrivate Detective
Posts : 480
Joined: 25 MAY 2011
Status : Offline | Hell, Tomb Raider has a female protagonist, and I looooooooooove that game and I love Lara! That's a game that has THE BEST third person camera.
Nature's first green is gold,&&Her hardest hue to hold.&&Her early leaf's a flower;&&But only so an hour.&&Then leaf subsides to leaf.&&So Eden sank to grief,&&So dawn goes down to day.&&Nothing gold can stay.
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| 4 SEP 2011 at 8:31am |
CarolineJA+ Overseer
Posts : 16540
Joined: 28 JAN 2007
Location: AU
Status : Offline | I know a great many women and not one of them plays computer or console games. Worldwide, I'm guessing that gaming is predominantly a youthful male activity which makes all female gamers a minority sub-group. How could we possibly know what sort of games all those non-gaming women would enjoy if their life circumstances encouraged gaming?
Therefore, I suggest that taking such a small group of females as is currently playing is doomed not to produce solid data. We should instead forget gender and focus on personality profiles. There are afterall, plenty of men who avoid violent games. I lost count of the number of men who loved Syberia.
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| 4 SEP 2011 at 9:10am |
TravellerGuild Master
Posts : 4040
Joined: 3 JUL 2010
Location: US
Status : Offline | I know quite a few women who play computer/console games, usually as a hobby/activity with their male partners, which seems to be trend but not the rule. These females are usually in an age group of 30-something and younger, though once again, I know perhaps at least one or two who may be older.
So my guess is that the female gamer group is an up-and-coming group.
It is true that many of them, especially the older end of the range avoid violence, but violence certainly doesn't seem to be a problem for younger females, and young girls of ages 6-16 seem to indulge in virtual violence as lustily as their male counterparts.
This may in part be because of the violent/brash/assertive female rolemodels girls have been seeing on TV such as Kim Possible, Powerpuff Girls, Mandy in The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, Hannah Montana, etc.etc.
Oh, and it depends on what you mean by "youthful". Some of the gamers I have met have been in their 40's and 50's. Interestingly, the people in their 50's seem to prefer RPG's and SIMs like the submarine game Silent Hunter. The people in their 40's seem to prefer strategy and shooters, and also, interestingly, SIM's, and 30's and younger go for a variety; JRPG's, action RPG's and shooters and action seems to be the main preference.
I admit that the females I know generally also seem to lean more towards Adventure Games in general, and younger females that I've been in contact with, looove Nancy Drew games. My guess is that although the games are gender marketed, the crossover takes place when you have boyfriend/girlfriend and brother/sister playing together.
I bought my little girl all the "girly" games like Barbie, and "My little Horse show" etc., and "Princess" stuff, but she's been trying her hand at her brother's games as well. Why not, after all? I'm most certainly not going to stop her. I'm against forcing gender shaping too vigorously, and I can see how it's been happening in the gaming industry.
I am trying to shield the kiddies against any type of 'realistic' violence for now, but I suppose one can't do that forever either.
* * * Just call me Trav. * * *
“Despite my ghoulish reputation, I really have the heart of a small boy. I keep it in a jar on my desk.” - Robert Bloch
"They are not reciprocally sublated--the one does not sublate the other externally--but each sublates itself in itself and is in its own self the opposite of itself" (Hegel, from The Doctrine of Being)..."
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| 4 SEP 2011 at 10:12am |
walshSorcerer Apprentice
Posts : 384
Joined: 15 DEC 2010
Status : Offline | I was surprised to hear the main audience for the Carol Reed game was 90% women. I suppose it could be the female protagonist, the relaxed pace and pleasant surroundings. Those are the things I like about it also, as well as the clever and logical puzzles which aren't too hard. But the games can get quite dark as well, with murders and some difficult and mature themes.
I never got the idea of men spending their gaming time looking down ironsights and shooting people, and women on Sims-style life management games.
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| 4 SEP 2011 at 11:35am |
TravellerGuild Master
Posts : 4040
Joined: 3 JUL 2010
Location: US
Status : Offline | Originally Posted By walsh (4 SEP 2011 10:12am)
I was surprised to hear the main audience for the Carol Reed game was 90% women. I suppose it could be the female protagonist, the relaxed pace and pleasant surroundings. Those are the things I like about it also, as well as the clever and logical puzzles which aren't too hard. But the games can get quite dark as well, with murders and some difficult and mature themes.
I never got the idea of men spending their gaming time looking down ironsights and shooting people, and women on Sims-style life management games.
Hehe, I doubt that women for some reason avoid "dark" themes, and that women are all little Pollyana's just looking at the bright side of life... Well, it might have been nice to ignore the dark side of life, but sadly, women in many parts of the world still, as in ages gone past, experience the dark side of life.
In many countries and ages gone past, women have been the scapegoats for the sins of the world. It is, after all, Eve who accepts the apple in the "Garden of Eden" creation story, and women have been punished for that ever since. Women are pretty often on the receiving end of violence, and that sad fact is not going to go away anytime soon. So we cannot divorce ourselves from violence, the possibility of it lurks everywhere;- it's a part of life.
Acceptance of the existence and possibility of violence, though, is somewhat different from (I believe) an excessive focus on violence and actually revelling in killing and destruction. To me, there is a huge difference between playing a game where some murders have been committed by someone other than yourself, and one step further, -yourself defending against monsters/attackers, and the kind of game that I personally find abhorrent, like Postal, for instance, where gamers go out of their way to kill people, even innocent people, in a gratuitously violent way.
A good example of what really turns me off is the "kiddie-killer" mod that was made for Fallout 3, which enables the gamer to kill children in the game in all kinds of gory ways. Some gamers made vids of their avatars slaughtering kids in the game, and posted these vids on Youtube.
That's the point where I really go [smiley=eww.gif]. Blooming sicko's.
But hey, even though this is the Hot Spot, let's not turn it political or whatever. I'd just like to point out that women generally are the biggest readers of mystery fiction, which usually involves a murder "whodunit"; and this does seem to reflect to some extent in the gaming industry as well. You could add yours truly to the ranks of "crime fiction" lovers as well. I love my mysteries whether in fiction or gaming.
* * * Just call me Trav. * * *
“Despite my ghoulish reputation, I really have the heart of a small boy. I keep it in a jar on my desk.” - Robert Bloch
"They are not reciprocally sublated--the one does not sublate the other externally--but each sublates itself in itself and is in its own self the opposite of itself" (Hegel, from The Doctrine of Being)..."
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| 4 SEP 2011 at 2:58pm |
HalcyonSchattenjger
Posts : 1652
Joined: 17 NOV 2006
Status : Offline | I'm suspicious of that 90% figure for Carol Reed. I play them all. They're relaxing. I play Nancy Drew, too. I also play Fallout, Battlefield and Machanarium. I love playing as Sherlock, but hate playing as Watson. A gender-bender portfolio, if you're looking to pigeon-hole your demographic.
I don't think the sterotypes work here, adults. I'm a manly man who prefers games (as well as video games, hehe) with female protagonists. However, sometimes it doesn't matter, like Lost Crown. Other times--and I guess my preference--is to play as "myself" in first-person.
I agree that the focus shouldn't be on gender and age-old measurements of sensibilities and toughness, of pink vs blue, etc. Age, choices, life situation, location, income, etc., are the strong points. Do gamers also watch a lot of movies, or not?
Anyway, I'd love to look through some professional studies of gamers and gaming. And I don't think I'd trust studies that aggregate information people enter into their gaming profiles on various sites. I lie, don't you?
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